5 Myths About Freedom

 

5 Myths About Freedom

 


 

Myth #1 Living in Freedom is so much easier than always being on a diet.



Truth; Being on a diet gives us a false sense of willpower.  Somehow it seems easier to follow a plan when someone else is making the rules. The truth is we have the same amount of willpower we had before. We don’t trust ourselves with freedom. We haven’t had enough practice. You probably have more information than you will ever need on calories, carbohydrates and eating, it’s time to trust yourself and your body to make the right choices.

Truth: This thinking dooms us to failure. We don’t know how to live free of a diet. We aren’t taught to follow our own bodies cues of hunger or enough. Our only measure of success is the scale, which we step on to obsessively to either be affirmed or stop off of felling dejected. The promise of 5-7 pounds in bold print on every diet plan, should also be followed by the 10 pounds you will gain when you inevitably fall off of it.

Truth:  We have allowed our minds to be molded by society, instead of by truth. You were created with a functioning body and mind. Food was never meant to be pastime, your comforter, or the object of our affection. The answer is not a diet; the answer is to make small changes that eventually become lifetime habits. This may result in quick weight loss, but will probably result in a slow consistent weight loss that will last a lifetime.

Myth #2 Spending Less and Eating Less is the same as dieting and budgeting.

amazon.com

Truth: This is like saying; having a job is the same as owning your own business. If you are an employee your employer set the business goals, and decides what how you will get there. Your job is to do as you’re told, and then get paid. On a diet if you follow it to the tee you will lost 5 pounds in a week; do the work, get paid. The owner of the business however can be free to choose; he can make or lose as much as he wants by the amount of effort he/she chooses to put into his/her business.

Truth: You can be free to make the choices one at a time that are right for you. You get to be responsible for the results that will be lifelong.

Truth: How you choose to spend and eat should be choice by choice, not rule by rule. You will make good and bad choices, but you will learn, grow and move forward. There are things that I have chosen to stay away from because they become a constant distracting temptation if I know they are around. That will change as I get stronger. This is not a diet, this is a life choice and it’s mine to make.

Myth #3 If people see me eating what I want, they will judge me.

Truth: This is partially a myth. There are people that will judge you for everything you do. You can’t stop judgmental people, they will always exist. The truth is; if you are living in freedom most people don’t know what to do with it, especially if you don’t fit into the box of success they have in their heads. People are used to living by the standards and rules that others put on them. Society makes the standard and then people create rules for you to reach their standard (which by the way is always shifting). When you rely on God’s Spirit in your life to help you make choices, everything changes. Now it’s not what you are doing, but why you are doing that matters. Why do you want one more bite if you are no longer hungry? Why do you feel the need to buy something you don’t need? Why do the urge to tell a better story than the person next to you?

Truth: When others see you living in freedom and slowly losing weight while eating what you like, it may give them the courage they need to take a leap of faith as well.

Myth #4 The results are too slow.

The real question is how much progress have you made with diets, rules and budgets so far? My husband and I used to fight constantly about debt, which usually ended with me making all kinds of promises to make drastic changes tomorrow. He would retort, “Just stop the bleeding”. In other words all your big drastic changes usually end in a binge, and over time you are bleeding out, stop one; stop the bleeding! I have made so much more progress with small, consistent changes, than I ever saw in 20 years of impulsive, drastic, rule based diets or budgets, all aimed at fast results.

Myth #5 There’s not point, I will just fail

Truth: That’s the best Myth of all. You can’t fail because there are no rules to break. You are on a journey, and success just means not giving up. Every step in the right direction is better that 20 quick fixes and relapses.  When your goal is to fix your thinking and create small daily habits, the rest will follow. I gained 5 pounds and only paid off $3000. of my debt the first year I committed to this process, but I didn’t give up. My goal was freedom, not a quick 10 pounds. This year however I have lost my first honest 6 pounds, without dieting, all the while eating normal food and not losing a night of sleep because of a the numbers on the scale. I am slowly but consistently moving towards a debt free life. That feels awesome. The feeling of owning my choices and trusting the Spirit to guide me is nothing I’ve ever known before, and don’t want to live without.

HOPE WIRTA   hope@stopspeating.com      

HOW IS LEARNING GOLF LIKE SPEATING?

beginnergolf.com

I am a banker in my day life. As a banker, I am expected to know how to golf. A few years back I
decided to take some golf lessons with my husband. I called Jen a golf instructor offered to us by our local golf course and bought a starter set of clubs. Stan (my husband) took to golf like a fish to water. Within a few lessons he was sailing golf balls through the air with ease. Ito put it mildly, did not do as well. I took my lesson very seriously. I practiced at home, and worked on my form, but even when I was standing correctly, watching the ball and taking my time, my attempts to  hit that little white ball would result in a strange plink sound, the ball would skip up and neatly land 3 feet in front of me. If I went to the practice range and hit a bucket of balls I would pain stakingly hit one after the other for an hour just to look out and see them on the ground a few feet in front of me. I remember thinking, I would get them further if I just threw them at the hole. It didn't take long to understand that golf is a game you love to hate. It reminded me a lot of my relationship with food and money, both things I love to hate.

flickhivemind.net
 

As I have been learning to make choices about eating and spending without the aid of a diet program or specific budget, it has felt a lot like learning to golf. You think you are prepared for the day, you have thought it through and planned how you will respond in certain food intensive situation, you mentally prepare, pray, swing at the day and still find yourself surrounded with a lot of failed attempts.
Every now and then however, you get it right. You find yourself watching the ball soar away from your club and actually land where you wanted it to. You can't believe it. All those things Jen taught me actually work.
Those moments keep you hooked, and the more you get out there and play, the more often they happen. It's just a matter of remembering what you did right that time and teaching your brain to make it a habit by doing it over and over again. Its worth it, don't give up.

Keep It Simple

image found at redorbit.com

Our brains are complicated. I love it when people give me simple analogies to help me get concepts.
Don't talk to me about neurons and firing, and try to help me understand what parts of my brain are lighting up when I eat a donut. Grab my hand and help me put down the donut? Its not that I don't find it interesting to hear how it all works, but I would really like a practical solution as opposed to a science class.
There was a counselor that I went to years ago that was great at helping me "get it" when it comes to habits.
As I struggled to help her understand why for the 5th year in a row we were still talking about the same 5 pounds, she gently stopped me and told me this story.
Let's say that you are avid skier. You are so good that you are one of those guys that they drop out of a helicopter to the top of a mountain. The first few times you might hit the mountain and think about the direction and the easiest path, but it doesn't take long until you can safely reach the bottom of the mountain every time.  Day after day you are dropped onto this mountain until you have carved a nice groove and sail without thinking down the mountain with style. Then one day you are told you need to find a new path to the bottom because the old path has monster blocking it. You are dropped from the helicopter and "uh oh" you have to stop and think which way to go. You have to forge a new path to the bottom. You fall a few times and it takes you much longer, but you get there. The next day you have to stop and think again. It takes a few days of trial and error, but eventually you find a new path down the mountain. The old path is till there, and you could still go down it pretty easily, but it might not be safe. You miss it, but eventually the new one feels like home.
This is how I learned about habits, neuropath ways and the brain.

5 Things I learned from Frugal People

I have frugal people in my close circle. For years if you had asked me to define frugal, I might have
used some derogatory phrases (tight wad, skin flint, stingy) in a good way, of course. Life has a way of changing our thinking. Think of that moment you actually started to appreciate your mother; it probably happened after you moved out and ruined your first load of laundry, at  2AM after a night with a sick child, or after hours of dealing with a  hyper, whiney or strong willed 3 year old. As I have embarked on the journey of using no debit or credit cards, and having a limited amount of cash each week, I now understand why frugal people do some of the things they do, not all of them, but some of them. Here are 5 things I have learned from my frugal friends;
1. Purchases are only made when you can no longer justify waiting to buy them and only after researching the best price. Purchases are not made because everything in the Christmas isle is 75% off, or because "those shoes are awesome!"
2. If I decided to eat lunch out, or stop at Starbucks, I have to give up something else that I would have bought with that money. I don't raise my spending limit for the week by the amount I spent. I then have the right to celebrate at the end of the month when there is actually money in savings, and my account is not negative.
3.When you know there is money in your account, the correct response is "nice, now we have enough to pay for vacation, and a nest egg in case of emergencies" NOT "How fun, think of the possibilities,  what do you want to do with it RIGHT NOW?"
4.Stopping by the store to pick up milk does not cost $80.00, because as you walked through the Atkins aisle you decided you should try that diet again, the hair products and make up aisle and remembered you need EVERYTHING, and passed the new flavor of coffee creamers and who doesn't need mint chocolate coffee creamer.
5.Saving up to do something and then having the satisfaction of paying for it afterwards feels awesome.

What in the World is spEATing?

What in the world is spEATing?

Stop Speating is the term I coined for the two behaviors that have consumed my thinking for the past
30 years; Spending and Eating. These two habits and trying to stop them have taken up 80% of my available brain power, everybody else got what was left. For all the books and solutions the world has come up with to solve these problems, there are a lot of people still desperate for help.
Since these issues are completely accepted in society no-one see's you as abnormal or crazy if you are struggling with eating or spending, this is how we live, it's how we cope, it's the norm.
Part of the problem is that our desire to change isn't based on a desire for freedom and health, honesty would admit that it is more a desire for good looks and less debt to pay off. We don't find freedom because our motivation is based on the wrong things.
We have formed habits that now hold us hostage. The solutions is not found in rules, diets, or systems devised for quick fix results and long term failure.
The solution is to slow down. We spend and eat fast and want it fixed fast. It doesn't work that way. We need to figure out where we want to go. What is it that we really want? Do you want health and freedom or do you want to keep hoping you can eat and spend without ending up fat and broke?If you don't know, you will never get there.
Real change is not a fast process. The question is, why do you want to stop spending, eating, smoking, drinking, or whatever habits have you in their grasp. Are you alright with taking the long road to change?
Lets start with the next 90 days!
I am writing a book about my own journey to live in freedom called "Stop Speating". A journey to slow down the process and learn.  I will not let Spending and Eating (speating) drive me any more.
My 90 day challenge includes small changes like; not using cards, living with a certain amount of cash each week, no more credit, no more impulse debit usage. It also includes no more diets (this has been the hardest one). I will live with my decision good or bad, but not compensate for them by "dieting or budgeting tomorrow". I am journaling my successes along the way. The successes for me, include the times I enjoy the company I am with and don't focus on the food, wait for hunger and eat small amounts, don't purchase things not on my list, and end the week with cash left over. The biggest successes for me however are not berating myself or starting over when I slip up. It's a journey, and I am a broken person, this is how I will learn.
This is not a short term, quick fix, this is me taking back my life and changing what I give 80% of my brain power to. This is me not being motivated by a system that doesn't know or love me. This is the truth. I was not created to try to look better than the people around me, I was created to love them, not compare myself to them. I was created to be grateful for the gifts God gives me and share them with those around me, not collect stuff I don't need just to have it. I was created to live in peace and joy in the midst of good and bad times knowing that God bigger then me, has it all under control, and I can trust Him. That's truth, and I want to live the rest of my life in truth. The lies betrayed me and I am not listening anymore.
If you have read this and are ready to take a challenge of your own I would love to hear about it. Email me  hope@stopspeating.com  and share your journey.

The Space Inside My Head

deviantart.com

We all live inside our heads. Inside our heads we hold entire conversation; try to decide what others
are thinking about us, rerun old conversations thinking about what we should have said, plan our futures, watch people around us and place them in our labeled people buckets; we can go from elation to depression in minutes based on the places our mind wanders, our minds our deep and if allowed will wander where our emotions lead, we talk to God, talk to ourselves, talk to others,  fall in love, and become rock stars; all inside our heads.
What happens  however,  when you no longer trust the person inside your head. What do you do if this person you have become is someone who has betrayed you on multiple occasions; sabotaged your success, spent your money, built up debt, hurt the people you love, and caused you to become someone you don't want to be? How do you keep the place in your head from becoming someplace you don't want to be. A place where you feel judged, accused and worthless. A place where negativity is the norm, arguments over calories, credit cards, careers, and relationships wont stop. You hear yourself make promise after promise, knowing they will never be kept, you never keep your promises, they are empty. You want to trust, to love, to believe, but you have been let down one to many times.
How do you turn the relationship around? How do you trust yourself again?
Its time to invite a new voice into the conversation. It's time to silence the madness and let the quiet be. It's time to wait and let the quiet voice of grace begin to be heard, to saturate, and bring you back to less frantic pace where you first heard it. This is the place where you don't place yourself or others in buckets based on a system designed by someone who wants to hurt you. This is a place where you can rest and listen to the voice of acceptance and hope; hope that this is not the end. The voice of your creator reminding you that; your goals is not to fit in, get thin or race the bank. Your goal is to learn to live in this love and  let it saturate you so completely that it effects the world around you. It's time to listen and learn so that when the lies attempt to take the space back you stop them in their tracks and shout the truth. I am loved, I am forgiven, I am free, and you don't have a place inside my head. This place is forever taken.

You Don't Scare Me

Every now and then I have to travel for work. The thing about traveling is it doesn't feel like real life
. Bank accounts and calories cease to exist. Its the same with holidays and birthdays. We overeat, overspend and then pay for it the rest of the year. I once read a statistic that stated if you overate and overspent only on birthdays and holidays you would add 5 pounds a year to your weight and $2000. a year on average to your debt.. We then compensate by starving ourselves and limiting our budgets. Just thinking about it exhausts me.
As I write this I am sitting in a hotel room. I have ginger snap cookies, grapefruit slice gummies, oranges, grapes, chocolate covered gummy bears and Swedish fish sitting on my desk. I ate a late lunch on the way up here and then stopped at the grocery store so I could stay in and work this evening.
You may be thinking, OMG this girl is a crazy sugar fiend, and you would be right, however this is actually a victory for me; allow me to explain.
A year ago, when I started this freedom project I would never have allowed myself to enjoy treats in moderation, I would have come to the conference, overeaten at a local restaurant with friends, after doing some shopping and then berated myself all evening while feeling the effects of the meal well into the evening. The next morning before heading to whatever workshop or conference I was attending, I would vow to make up the difference by under eating, because experience has showed us this always works. I then would have proceeded to get up eat a light breakfast, sit through 4 hours of complete mind numbing boredom and be completely starving when the corporate lunch arrived at noon. I would eat everything in sight and top it off with an enormous corporate size cookie. Then of course there's always the table candy they throw out to keep you from going comatose in the afternoon session, all washed down with large amounts of diet coke.
Not this year! As I said at the beginning, I enjoyed a normal size late lunch on the way here before stopping at the grocery store. I had so much fun picking up small baggies of all my favorite treats. I spent the late afternoon working and am able to enjoy some fruit and  a few of each of my favorite "out of town" treats without guilt. I don't have to overdue it, and I don't have to feel guilty or deprived. Food is not my enemy or my secret lover, its just another part of my life. I can enjoy it because I am not afraid of it.
I will take all my fun leftovers home with me, along with a the great feeling of one step forward.

Big Girl Pants

Big Girl Pants

Anyone who has ever had a 3 year old has been through the pain of potty training. It is torture. Kids will do anything to not have to stop and go to the bathroom. Teaching a child that it is better to go to the potty to do your business instead of sitting in it, seems like an easy transition, however kids don't want to stop playing, watching their shows, or eating long enough to go use the restroom. They will sneak behind the couch and hide while they poop in their pants before they will let you take them to the bathroom.  Now and then you get an easy kid, but they are rare, and those of us who have had to deal with the 4 year old pant poopers don't want to hear about it. In the area of debt, I am a 4 year old pant pooper. You would think after 20 years of sitting in my own mess I would easily run to the potty and want it to be gone forever, but not me! I want to make more, and then I want to sit in it a long time, because it's fun to carry it around with me and stink up the whole room. It am fully aware that this makes no sense, but I have mastered the art. I, like the 4 year old can easily walk around pretending the mess is normal and smells just fine. I have progressed to pull ups and am almost to the point of being able to wear my big girl pants in public, but its a work I progress. I still have little accidents. I like to keep playing, and watching shows and don't want to stop playing to think about silly things like amounts and limits. However when you add it all up, its a whole lot of doo doo.
When other's were cleaning up my mess, I didn't learn as quickly, but now that I have to clean it up on my own, it's nowhere near as much fun. Its time to get clean and stay clean; let's do this.

It's not you; It's me

featurepics.com

It's not you; It's me

Healthy relationships  encourage people to be the best versions of themselves. They don't force you to be everything to them, they don't control you, badger you, call you every second to see where you are, because they don't trust you, or tempt you to do things that they know are bad for you.
Based on this definition, I need to break up with Food. Food and I have been codependent for way to long. Food calls me, from wherever he is, asking me to find him and spend time with him. When I am hanging out with friends, he wants all of my attention. We break up 3 times a month and then get back together again. He gets jealous when I try to live without him and calls me 6 times a day, even when I am working. The problem is every time I break up with him, he's all I think about. When I am with him he makes me feel so happy, but afterwards I always feel miserable about our time together.
I tried going out with his friend "diet" a few times, but it was worse. He just wanted to keep my all to himself and would never let me hang out with any of my old friends. Everyone else was off limits.
If I am every going to be the person I know want to be I am going to have to walk away and grieve the loss of this lifelong relationship. I know I will want to go back, I know I will feel the loss for a long time. It will hit me most when I am lonely and bored, or at 2AM when I can't sleep, but if I am ready for a relationship that inspires me and helps me see all I can accomplish. I know it's not his fault, I'm the one who blew him out of proportion. I'll make sure he knows, it's not you, it's me. We can still be friends.

Just One More

Just One More

picture from: branlesstales.com

Just one more bite, a little something sweet after lunch, a pick me up at two in the afternoon followed by another cup of  coffee, and a snack before bed.  It's no wonder I have no idea what it feels like to really get hungry. They say you should eat several small meals a day, I wonder if they meant 12? I need to go on a snackfast. I would probably lose ten pounds in a month if I could go one month without the extra bite, extra piece, little tastes and drinks.
Its the same with money. Five bucks a day for a month is $150., 10 bucks a day for month is $300, add and extra $3. and you have just rounded off the little extras a day to $540. a month. That's basically what I spend on coffee, lunch and soda in a day, thrown in one pair of shoes, and maybe a night of drinks or  movie and you could easily be at $600 a month. If you were to put that amount of money in savings for 10 years at a only a 1% earning you would have $80,000. My point isn't to give everything up. That's the kind of thinking that puts us one diets and budgets and leaves us feeling defeated. My point is to be more aware of  how often we don't think about our choices. I want to live the way I choose, I don't want habits to choose my life. I want my 20 pound and 80 grand when I look back 10 years from now. I don't want to be fighting the same battles, like I was 10 years ago.
That whole tortoise and hare story is making a whole lot more sense than it use to. Moving forward is better than not moving at all.
My goal this week is to make choices, to snackfast and spendfast. Im not going to weigh or check my account until the end of the week. I will use cash no debit card, and eat when I am hungry (not to satisfy a head craving). I will journal all the times I would have taken an extra bite, grab or taste, and don't. I will write down how much I don't spend but normally would have.
It will be an interesting experiment to see how many times I actually spend and eat without thinking in a week.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

A good week is a week where I have been able to follow my own advice. I know what I need to do, and I do it. I am strong, determined, and controlled. I get to the end of the week, my weight is down and I have money left over in my spending bucket.
The problem comes when I am so excited about having a good week that I feel the need to celebrate. The ensuing celebration then proceeds to negate all the progress made the week before, and maybe add a little damage just for good measure. I lay awake Sunday night, beat myself up.  I wake up on Monday and do it all again; lather, rinse, repeat.
In this journey to learn to make choices, renew the way I think, and live in step with the freedom God intended  for me, I have run across a few stumbling blocks, namely; happiness, anxiety, sadness, anger, loneliness, exhaustion and boredom. All of these emotions, and maybe a few I missed, are  the reasons I use to deviate from making choices, and instead let impulse habits run my life. Where do I go from here?
 My next step on the adventure to freedom is to decide ahead of time what I will do to preempt the strike of this emotional Saba-tore. Now that I know he will arrive Friday at 5PM,  I can anticipate his next move; before I find myself on another sleepless Sunday night wondering  "what just happened?"

You know you're a SpEATer when

You know youre a SpEATer

When obsessing over dieting and spending becomes more of an addiction than eating and spending; you might be a speater.
When you weigh yourself 4 times a day looking for any amount of loss  and your scale measures ounces instead of pounds, you might be a speater.
When the largest percent of your caloric intake for the days is cupcakes, you might be a speater.
When your monthly credit card payments looks more like a mortgage, you might be a speater.
If you hit the snooze so many times that you have to get up to make lunch, you might be a speater.
If you consider 1 pack  of cigarettes a day an improvement, you might be a speater.
If you have restarted your eating plan every Monday for 15 years, you might be a speater.
If you have never had to cut your fingernails because your teeth will do, you might be a speater.
If you spend most of your check in the first two days after payday and then spend the next 13 days waiting for payday, you might be a speater.
If you lay awake at might counting carbs and calories eaten and burned, you might be a speater.
If you have clothes with tags still on them in your closet, you might be a speater.
If you have crumbs on the front seat of you car, and fast food bags in the back, you might be a speater.
If you wonder where that pizza went, you might be a speater.
If  it is music to your ears when the cashier says "you can save 10% by applying for a card today" you might be a speater.
If you go to the movies and look forward to the popcorn more than the movie, you might be a speater.
If you are thinking about breakfast after dinner, you might be a speater.
Just know....you are not alone, and there is hope for us all!

Journal Hoarder

Journal Hoarder

photo by imgkid.com

I love office supplies almost as much as I love chocolate. Nothing makes me happier than a blank journal and brand new pen. There is a certain smell to the office supply aisle of the store that just makes me feel wonderful. I have a desk drawer full of partially used journals. I can't throw them away, I love them!, various shapes and sizes, prints and colors, they are padded, leather, paper back and soft back., some have lined paper, some with blank pages. I have some with spiral back and some book bound, I love them all. There is a feeling when I open a new journal of unlimited possibilities.; what profound thing will I fill these pages with? I think of themes, topics, people, lists……It all makes me feel inspired. There is also something about having the perfect pen. If you have ever worked in an office you know this. People get cranky if you take their favorite pen. They tape flowers to them and place them in coffee cups full of marbles, tie them to the desk and track them down when they go missing. The right pen is hard to find. When I go to the store I literally have to avoid the office supply aisle all together.  I’m getting much better about impulse purchasing, but I’m not that strong yet. Don’t even get me started on calendars and date books…..

Freedom or Bust

 

Freedom or Bust

For 20+ years I have been in one of two place; feeling guilty or feeling stressed. If I stopped worrying about money and food I felt guilty. If I went on a diet or budget I would stress constantly about doing it right. The scale and debt balance became my daily measure of success. My mind was obsessively going over calories, counting carbs, or assessing my current debt situation. The assessment usually ended with chocolate to help with the stress of the assessment. There were very few days that I ever felt free of the burden of my habits. I was afraid that I was doomed to failure and a life where I would just be fat and broke.
I had seen glimpses of freedom, days when truth would penetrate the influx of information I had been consuming on the subject. Those were good days, but they were far and few between. The draw of the habit to diet was strong, the need for the outside control of a budget felt safe.
Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying you should eat and spend "willy-nilly". I am saying those tools can become just as much a habit as eating and spending. I spent most of my life between binging or dieting, spending or budgeting. I was anything but free.
When I had finally had enough was the day I looked back and saw that I was worse off than I had been when I had gotten on the ride 20 years before. Any sane person would choose to get off the ride and walk away.
So I decided that for me it was freedom or bust. I was going to learn to walk one day at a time without the control of a diet. I had no idea how hard that was going to be. The 90 day plan has so far been almost a year. I have learned a lot, and am still on the Journey. My goal is to make choices one at a time. To CHOOSE, not to be compelled, or controlled. I don't know where you are on your journey or I you believe in God.  Alcoholics Anonymous calls on a higher power when they realize they are helpless to change on their own. I was, and am, there on a daily basis. For me, I am a Christian. As a Christian  I believe I was created; I also believe that my creator knows me and promises that if I walk with His spirit I will not carry out the desires that want to sabotage me.
That is my goal. Choosing to follow and live in freedom verses  being controlled by compulsions or unrealistic restrictive plans that leave me with regret and shame when I can't keep them. I choose freedom.

Speating?

SPEATING?

When I first married my second husband I was 29 years old, and recently widowed. I had four children that I brought with me into this new partnership, Stan brought two children of his own. We were both broken injured people. I having lost a spouse, and Stan having been abandoned by his wife for a drug addiction  and an affair with his brother. He had struggle to raise two very young children, work and go to school nights on his own for 4 years.
As we struggled together to  make this new marriage work our lack of preparedness become more and more apparent. I had been raised in a Christian home, attended a Christian school, I had never smoked, drank, or allowed a swear word to escape my Christian lips. I could quote hundreds of Bible verses, and could sing every Amy Grant song in the catalogue. Stan on the other hand had been raised in a culture of drugs and alcohol. He had become a Christian 4 years previously at the age of 36. He had known and even believed the Gospel message for years since his years in the Navy, but had not made the decision to give his life to God until his wife left him.
Stan came from a more stoic "catholic, German mother" family background "very limited physical contact", I came from a background of bear hugs and kisses. He is an introvert, I am not, at all!, He is frugal, I am not, at all! He thinks things through, I jump. He likes a quiet home life, I love a party atmosphere. Our one commonality became our worst nightmare....legalism. That's the short list of the obstacles that were ahead for us.
We had 6 children between us when we married and would have our 7th two years later. I was homeschooling the kids, running a home business and working in the church. Stan was building a room in the attic for my mother who was soon to come live with us and working overtime as an electrician to feed 9 people.
We began to fight, attacking each other under the stress. Our kids were just as broken as we were after the death of their father and losing a mother to drugs. We were the parents, but we were not fit to lead or help anyone heal. We all desperately needed help, and had no idea were to go.
We were lacking a church family at the time. We had left the church were we had met, because they felt Stan should not remarry after being divorced, even though his wife had left him to be with someone else. He had lived alone with his  kids for five years before we married. but the church felt that scripturally he was never free to re-marry. Once we were married we looked for a church here we could start over and did finally find one. The next 12 years were a jumble of counselors, guilt, desperation, fights, and pain, for all involved.
It was during these years that I turned to eating and spending for stress relief and comfort. I learned that I could go into another world where fast food and credit cards would get me through. I ran up bills and ate my way through a lot of years, but God was not absent. God as He does was working quietly to bring beauty from the pain, and healing that He alone would get the glory for.
Stan and I have been married now for 24 years and God has been so good to us. Our 7 kids are grown and we have 6 beautiful grandchildren. We belong to a church body in Portland where we have attended and served for the past 8 years.
Speating (spending+eating)is how God led me to His answers for my desperate cry for healing. Where counselors and books couldn't go, He did (or, I should, say He is!)
Speating is a combination of my first therapies of choice SPENDING+EATING.
This blog and the book that will follow are about my journey through frustrating years of diets and budgets to a deeper relationship with God that would bring so much more than weight loss and a savings account; join me on a journey to freedom.